Michael McGuckin, once a successful businessman, moved to rural Idaho in the 1970s but frittered away a family trust fund of about £350,000 in a series of madcap schemes.

He died last month aged 61 from a combination of malnutrition, dehydration and untreated multiple sclerosis. His passing sparked a series of events that led to his widow being arrested for child neglect and five of their seven children resisting for five days attempts to take them into care.

At the time, it was assumed that the family was one of many that scrape by throughout their lives on a mixture of social security payments and self-sufficiency. But Mr McGuckin's mother belonged to the family that ran the most exclusive jewellery and antiques firm in Boston, the New York Times said yesterday.

His father was a Harvard graduate and stockbroker whose own wealth allowed the family to live in Louisburg Square, the city's most sought-after address. Michael and his sister went to expensive schools and he lived a relatively normal life in San Francisco until the late 1970s, when he and his first wife, Randy, decided to "drop out" and go to Idaho, friends told the newspaper.

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He tried to set up a timber mill, which failed and, as time went by, he suffered increasing bouts of paranoia, fearing that he was being followed. With Mr McGuckin's mental problems apparently growing, the couple divorced in 1980. He married JoAnn Dunn, the daughter of a lumberjack, and they started their family.

She is still in jail awaiting charges and the children are in foster homes. Mr McGuckin is buried in a suit obtained from a charity and lies in a pauper's grave without a headstone.